AN-04-09-2 – A Thermal Bus System for Cooling Electronic Components in High-Density Cabinets PDF

The increasing power density of electronic systems is reaching the point at which it is no longer possible to adequately cool the individual components by direct air cooling. Successful cooling applications for high-power electronics must deal with thermal issues at the device, device cluster, PCB (printed circuit board), subassembly, rack, and cabinet. A thermal bus was designed to collect waste heat from individual or groups of components and passively transport that heat to a more favorable location where it can be physically removed by forced air or to a location inside or outside the cabinet where it can be transferred to an external cooling circuit or sink. This concept is fully compatible with current data center cooling architectures such as hot aisle/cold aisle. Extension to anticipated next-generation architectures, such as pumped liquid cooling, is relatively straightforward.

Units: SI